Changing the Death Penalty Policy

Changing the Death Penalty Policy
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Changing the Death Penalty Policy
The President can abolish the death penalty policy via presidential executive action. The President can sign several executive orders that would clear death row and stop federal prosecutions. He could issue a comprehensive executive order altering all convicts' sentences on federal death row to life without parole. The President could also announce a suspension of all federal executions. While this executive order would not extend past his term, the order would serve as an admission of the need to change the death penalty policy. The President can also extract the government's execution protocol and dismantle the federal execution chamber at FCC Terre Haute, where prisoners are executed. Besides, the President can issue executive orders to withdraw any communications of intent by the previous administration to pursue the death penalty. For instance, he could retract the lethal injection protocol, the "Manner of Execution" regulation that was implemented in December 2020, as well as internal Department of Justice guiding principles on litigating death row cases that also took effect in December 2020. Similarly, the President can establish a clear executive course of action that forbids federal prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty.
The legislative process can also be employed to change the death penalty policy. Only Congress can legitimately end the death penalty through legislation. This process will require a representative to introduce a bill pushing for abolishing capital punishment into the House of Representatives (Dieter, 1993). After the bill is assigned to a committee for study, testimonies from witnesses such as family members of murder victims, death-row exonerees, experts on capital punishment, anti-death-penalty activists, and family members of murder...